It took less than ten minutes for the spirit women to gather inside the hall. There were far too many for all of them to fit beneath the roof, leaving countless others seated beyond the entrance, and yet they formed an unbroken path between themselves by placing their hands upon the shoulders of the women before them.
Together, they resembled an enormous wave of multicolored bodies stretching from the throne toward every corner of the Spirit Realm.
Light filled the citadel and spread across the surrounding land as each woman allowed her mana to flow into the next. Even the beast-like spirits and other creatures had gathered in the distance to witness what was taking place, their bodies remaining low to the ground as they felt the growing presence coming from the ancient hall.
The magic covered the Spirit Realm in a multicolored embrace, yet something dangerous waited beneath that beauty, hidden inside Max’s chest and swallowing everything the spirits offered without showing the slightest sign of satisfaction.
Max remained seated upon the throne with both hands resting against its armrests, his black eyes focused upon the empty space before him as he gathered the Spirit Sovereign magic within his body and forced all of it toward his chest.
The void heart consumed it almost immediately. No matter how much Spirit Sovereign magic Max directed toward it or how much mana entered his body through Saelunith, the darkness devoured both faster than he could reclaim them and left almost nothing behind for him to use.
The former Spirit Sovereign had explained what needed to be done, but understanding the method did not make it any easier to accomplish. Max had to allow the void heart to consume an enormous amount of mana, hold onto that mana before it disappeared too deeply into the darkness, and then force the heart to release whatever remained after removing everything it considered impure.
Only mana that had passed through the void could be used to form the second heart, as it would carry the mark of the darkness already living inside his chest.
Anything else would be treated as an intruder and swallowed before Max had the chance to shape it, meaning the Mana Heart first had to become something the void recognized as belonging to Max if the two hearts were ever going to exist beside one another.
The process was already taking far longer than he had expected. The spirit women continued pouring their mana through one another until it reached Saelunith, who stood directly before Max with one palm pressed firmly against his chest.
Her blue hair floated behind her while multicolored light moved through her arm and entered his body, yet only a tiny amount of purified mana escaped the void heart each time Max forced it to release what it had consumed, while everything else remained trapped within the darkness.
Max attempted to release more mana from the void heart, but its hunger appeared to have no limit. Worse, the heart seemed to grow stronger with everything it consumed, making each attempt to reclaim the consumed mana more difficult than the last.
He had considered using the mana stored inside his own container, yet the void heart showed no interest in consuming it. Max tested several of his bloodlines, allowing their magic to move through his body and pass close to the darkness, but the heart ignored all of them as though it understood that they already belonged within him.
Only mana drawn from outside his body and the life-giving Spirit Sovereign magic caught its attention, forcing Max to consider whether any of this had happened by accident.
The System Creator had placed the void inside him, brought him into this world, and guided his path from the moment he awakened.
Her influence appeared wherever Max searched deeply enough, reaching beyond his own arrival and touching the life of the former Spirit Sovereign, a man who had entered this world thousands of years before Max and had been forgotten by nearly everyone still living within it.
Max had often wondered whether she had predicted everything that happened to him, but as the void heart continued consuming the mana offered by thousands of spirits while refusing to touch anything else within his body, he began considering the possibility that she had created it while already knowing he would eventually come here.
That thought made Max question everything he believed he understood about the mysterious being who had brought him into this world.
He knew that one day he would finally stand before her, and if he succeeded in freeing her from whatever prison was powerful enough to hold the Creator, he would need to find a way to make her suffer for everything she had done to him.
She had treated his life like a game, placing one obstacle after another in his path while changing his body, interfering with his mind, and taking away parts of him whenever they no longer suited whatever purpose she had prepared.
Max did not yet know how he would punish someone whose death could destroy an entire universe, but killing her could not be the only way to make her pay, and when he finally stood before her, he would discover what someone like her still feared losing.
Nearly an entire day passed before the first of the weaker spirit women began collapsing. Their hands slipped from the shoulders before them as their bodies fell against the floor, forcing those seated nearby to catch them and carry them away from the unbroken line.
Even those who remained conscious had grown pale, their eyes bloodshot and their multicolored hair clinging to skin damp with sweat.
Days slipped away like grains of sand falling through his fingers.
By then, so much mana had been drawn from the Spirit Realm that the colors beyond the citadel had begun to fade. Flowers lowered their heads as the magic sustaining them weakened, streams of multicolored water slowed between their banks, and several of the beast-like spirits watching from the distance retreated toward the deeper parts of the realm.
Max understood that the Spirit Realm itself might begin collapsing if the process continued for too long, yet he could not stop while the Mana Heart remained unfinished. He needed enough purified mana to shape a second heart beside the void, and although a growing mass of multicolored mana had gathered inside his chest, it was still far from what they required.
He needed enough strength to protect the people he cared about and destroy anyone who attempted to take them from him. Mercy had never protected Max before the void heart entered his chest, and it had not protected him afterward, as every enemy he spared appeared to return with another weapon, another army, or another way to threaten those standing behind him.
The void heart beat heavily as though agreeing with that thought, swallowing another wave of mana before Max tightened his grip upon the armrests and forced the darkness to return what it had taken.
Max pushed himself beyond what he had believed possible, forcing the void heart to spit out the mana it had purified and changed. What he had not expected was how pure that mana would become after emerging from the darkness, as every trace he had previously released from his mana container paled in comparison.
If the mana he had controlled before could create forests and fields, this purified mana might be capable of giving birth to a living creature if Max ever learned how to use it properly, and under his control, all of it gathered into multicolored light beside the void heart.
Within the multicolored light, the faint outline of a second heart began to appear.
The forming Mana Heart remained so unstable that Max believed it would collapse more than once, its unfinished shape trembling and breaking apart whenever the void heart released another heavy beat beside it. Each time that happened, Max gathered the escaping mana before it could scatter throughout his body and forced it back into place while Saelunith continued shaping it beneath her palm.
Even the small amount they had managed to gather felt purer than any mana Max had ever controlled. It passed through his body without resistance, nourishing everything it touched and briefly pushing back the emptiness surrounding his soul.
The Mana Heart was still nothing more than an incomplete outline, yet Max recognized that they had made progress. The method worked, and if they continued gathering purified mana at the same rate, he believed they could eventually complete it.
The moment Max believed the unfinished heart had become stable enough to maintain its shape without Saelunith constantly holding it together, the void heart reacted.
Darkness stretched across Max’s chest and wrapped around the fragile Mana Heart before either of them could stop it. The multicolored shape folded beneath the pressure, collapsing into a stream of purified mana that the void swallowed in a single violent pull.
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